Another 3-dimensional craft!  These hot air balloons are such a fun group activity since they involve drawing, spatial reasoning, and those fun, tactile, cotton-ball clouds.

If you’re doing this with a group, you’ll probably want to get the hot air balloons and foam cut out ahead of time.  To prep:

• Trace your hot air balloon shapes onto posterboard and cut them out, two for each participant.
• Each participant will get one shape that’s cut from the top down, and another shape that’s cut from the bottom up (see pictures below).  When cutting the slits, cut slightly longer than half way in each direction. This will simplify assembly.
• Then take floral foam (about 1″ thick) and cut it into circles with a cleaned out can, biscuit-cutter, or round cookie cutter.

Now you’re ready to bring on the participants!

First, instruct them to draw on both sides of both of their balloon cut outs.  It’ll all be visible once it’s assembled because it’s 3-D!

Then, show them how to line up the slits so that the shapes stand up.  You can get into how they’re standing perpendicular to each other, or at right angles to each other if you like.

Next, holding the bottom of the balloon firmly, push it into the floral foam circle.  Since floral foam is much softer than Styrofoam they should go right in.  If not you may need to use a pen, scissors, or a craft knife to score the foam first.

Now ask the participants to gently pull apart some cotton balls to make them look more like clouds.  Have them use liquid glue (glue sticks don’t really work for this) to attach the cotton to the floral foam.

And that’s it!  What a whimsical piece, right?  Our participants really liked to imagine the balloons are flying; ask them where they’re flying to! 🙂

Happy making!